


Once more unto the breach, dear friend

by marysutherland



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-03
Updated: 2011-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-25 16:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysutherland/pseuds/marysutherland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock takes John to the Globe Theatre. Originally written for a <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/575.html?thread=397119#t397119">kinkmeme prompt</a> on John being a Philistine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once more unto the breach, dear friend

[Act 1, Scene 1]

"Why are we going to see a Shakespeare production tonight?" John demanded.

Sherlock smiled: "Surely you can work that out yourself. Our current case-"

"-involves discovering where the pigeons in the Elephant and Castle shopping centre are getting their cocaine from. What on earth that can have to do with the South Bank, I don't know."

"There is no connection. Carry on with your deductions."

"You've got a case on currently, so it's not simple boredom. And I...hadn't planned anything for this evening, so you're not just trying to disrupt my life for the hell of it."

"You've eliminated those explanations as impossible, so what is the only improbable explanation remaining?"

"That you're doing this for fun? Sherlock, you know less about literature than you do about astronomy. You're not interested in it."

"And nor are you." It was a statement, not a question.

"I've had it in for Shakespeare ever since he wrecked my GCSE year." said John.

"Romeo didn't appeal to you? I suppose not."

"How the hell did you know I had to study _Romeo and Juliet_?"

"A guess, but a good one. I know when and where you went to school, there are only a few plausible exam syllabi you could have followed." Sherlock paused. "You might have preferred _Julius Caesar_. That was Mycroft's set text, he always complained that Brutus was an irritatingly incompetent conspirator."

"And what did you have to do for your exams?" said John, and then realisation dawned. "Don't tell me, it was bloody _Hamlet_ , wasn't it?"

"Half-past seven at the Globe Theatre, I'll meet you there." Sherlock winked and was gone.

 

[Act 2, Scene 1]

"So why Shakespeare?" John repeated that evening. "And no, I still can't deduce it."

"Necessary cultural knowledge, John. The Shrewsbury College case last month. I'd have realised Arthur Robinson's guilt far more quickly if I'd picked up the quotation from _Othello_."

"Yes, but you don't need to see the plays or read them for that kind of stuff," said John. "That's what you have Cliffs Notes and Wikiquotes for. Much more efficient than cluttering up your hard drive like this. And why the Globe? Does anyone come here but students and tourists?"

"If we're seeing Shakespeare, we might as well do it properly."

"400 years of building technology isn't to be sneezed at. So where are our seats?"

 

[Act 2, Scene 2]

John was seriously considering thumping Sherlock right where he stood in the Globe's courtyard.

"Groundlings? We have to stand for the whole show?"

"Last minute tickets, John, and it's more authentic."

"Catching the plague would be authentic, that doesn't mean it would be a good idea. That steward told me I can't sit down at all." John paused. "You do remember I've got a problem with my leg, don't you?"

"It's psychosomatic."

"Yes, which means it hurts when I think about it. Which I suspect I'm going to be doing a lot this evening. What are you doing now?"

"Calculating sight lines, best position for us to stand so you can see properly. Let's assume 30% of the audience are Japanese, and shorter than the average Westerner, though not of course you. Then there's the couples' factors, which gives a taller, but narrower profile, add in the design of the set, and I should say we move 3 metres to the right and 70 cm forward." He turned, smiling to John and added: "If your leg does start to hurt, lean on me. I can support you."

"Sherlock, you know I don't like to do that in public," said John, walking to where his friend was now standing."What will people in the audience think?"

"John, in just over two hours time, this audience will be watching love scenes played out by members of an all-male cast. They are not going to freak out at the sight of two men holding one another."

"An all-male cast?"

"It's authentic."

"It's bloody pantomime."

 

[Act 2, Scene 3]

There were other things Sherlock hadn't warned him about, the bastard. When the soldiers entered the theatre, John had realised something was wrong at once.

"You see those guys over there, Sherlock?" he said, grabbing Sherlock's elbow. "They're not real troops. What the hell is going on?"

"It's called acting," said Sherlock. "I believe they quite often have some of the cast enter through the groundlings."

"And they're dressed as squaddies because?"

"Because it's a production of _Henry V_ in modern dress."

"So why did you think it was a good idea to bring me to a play about British troops invading a foreign country?"

"Because the alternative was _Love's Labour's Lost_ and I didn't think you'd find that funny. Now shut up and listen, John, here comes the prologue."  
 

 [Act 2, Scene 4]

John got through the first half without collapsing or dying of boredom, which he was proud of. And he hadn't needed to lean on Sherlock, which was just as well. Because when he had his head on Sherlock's shoulder, and sometimes even Sherlock's arm around him, he could almost feel Sherlock thinking, hear what was going on in his mind. And it always hurt when what he could feel, hear there, was Sherlock's mind rapidly calculating, with no consciousness of John.

What was he thinking now, wondered John, turning slightly to look at Sherlock's rapt face. Sherlock would have worked out who every one of the characters was and how they were related right from the start, unlike John, and the complex floods of language would give up their secrets to him. Was it the acting he found enthralling? If you were a sociopath did you need performances like this to learn how to mimic hate, fear, war weariness...love?  
 

[Interlude]

The interval at last. A bench by the Thames to sit on, a tub of ice-cream and the blast of Sherlock's pent-up conversation. It was actually enjoyable, and it was only for fifteen minutes. If only he'd thought to ask Lestrade to text Sherlock with an urgent problem.  
 

[Act 3, Scene 1]

The second half was better. Maybe he'd found a better position for his leg, maybe his ear was getting attuned to the language. Or maybe it was just that Shakespeare, that civilian, somehow seemed to know what war was like, how once you were on campaign you made what seemed like sensible military decisions that could suddenly end up being rather too much like war crimes.

And he found the scene between Henry and Katherine oddly, even disturbingly entertaining. That last speech had included a singularly dirty pun, hadn't it? He supposed that the acting was rather broad, a few too many coarse gestures, but when Henry kissed the slim dark youth in drag playing Katherine it was somehow...right.

It was because he was concentrating that he was so abominably slow in reacting when someone attacked Sherlock. Thank God it had been such an amateurish attack. Who in their right mind tried to strangle someone in daylight in the midst of a crowd? But it was because John had been slow off the mark, desperately trying to catch up with the danger, that he thought the figure he saw from the corner of his eye, standing up in one of the boxes had a sniper's rifle in his hand, not a walking stick. Which was why he'd rugby-tackled Sherlock to get him out of the firing line, which was got the stewards so upset, which was why, by the time they got out of the theatre, Sherlock's attacker was long gone and they'd both been barred from the Globe for life.

Not that that bothered John. In fact, as they headed for home, he wondered  whether he could get his ASBO conditions altered again, to ban him from entering any theatre or concert hall in future. That'd teach Sherlock.  
 

[Epilogue]

Sherlock was silent all the way home and went straight to his bedroom. Trying to work out who had attacked him and why, John supposed, and still at the stage where he preferred no-one to breathe near him. Later, of course, he'd expect John to be his Yorick substitute (John might not care for Shakespeare, but he wasn't completely ignorant).

But for now he had some free time. He went to switch on the telly, but then abruptly decided he would try a spot of web-surfing. Somewhere out there, there must be a site that would not only have the text of Shakespeare's plays, but also notes explaining them, so that someone ordinary could actually work out what all the speeches meant. Because, to his own surprise, he did suddenly want to know how _Henry V_ ended. 

 

 

  



End file.
